Building a DIY black soldier bin

I have been buying dried bugs.  They are ridiculously expensive.  My chickens are crazy about them.  I justify the expense because at this point my chicken yard is pretty barren, not a lot of them to do.  I have some ideas to solve this problem, but until I have time, I like to give the chickens a variety of food, in the yard to give them something to do.
I'm seriously thinking about making a black soldier fly bin. I have read everything on Permies I could find. Watched hours of YouTube, and read articles on the internet.  The premade bins are cool, but way to expensive.  I keep changing my design for the bin.  Sometimes to much information is a bad thing.  I have decided on a medium size bin to start with.  I know I need drainage holes in the bottom of the bin. The bin itself will be in full shade and on bricks with wood chips underneath. Over the drainage holes should be rock. Over the rocks will be a layer of weed cloth, then a layer of coco coir. Inside I will need a ramp. The main ones I have seen are wood the easiest. PVC pipe, which I already have cut in half connected to an elbow and a pipe leading to the collection bin.  The other they used hard wire cloth cut in a ramp shape and made a ramp with cement. I like this one the most, because I can make the shape and curve I need. I have the wire, but would need to buy the cement. Lucky it's cheap.  I will need to have a way in for the bsf.  This could be the lid propped up on one side, holes drilled in the side, or a large hole in the top with an elbow or T pipe attached ( with wire making a cross so mice can't get in . This on I'm still on the fence on. Next I will need a collection container. I have a couple of plastic containers I used to ferment grains  for my chickens, a couple of them leak. You can't see a hole, I think the seam on the bottom have small cracks.  I already made cardboard blocks to hang from the lid while I watched hours of YouTube instrumental videos.  Once I have it built I will put a bunch of food scraps in and cover with burlap.  My biggest concern is having enough food scraps to maintain a healthy colony. I understand pretty much any food scraps except citrus, and chicken ( since I'm feeding the larva to my chickens) can go into the bin.

The funny thing is I hate maggots! They are disgusting. I will never be touching them.  That being said I'm only going to do composting in closed system from now on. It's really the only one I can get to work for me.  I have a worm bin which is great, but it takes like three months to get the worm castings, and then I have to separate the worms. So I like the bsf self harvest. It just seems like a good fit. And I understand the waist left by the bsf works great in the worm bin.

If you have a bsf bin, I would love to hear your thoughts on my design. Do's, and don't. Is if worth the time and effort?  Anything you want to add, or say.  Thanks

Hi Jen,

I built this for a small coin and gave it as b-day gift to a mate who had the same idea than you
He runs this "composter" since more than 4 years and gets a lot of grubs for his chicken...

Beside the liquid fertilizer needs to be diluted 1:1000 so strong is it.
The frass you sprinkle around your garden as you would do with classic chemical fertilizer.
Once you have a breeding stock keep some grubs (Maggots) for the next generations to come.
The adults die after mating but also the can be swept from the ground and fed to the chickens.

 

I'm getting started.  I had a bin. I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage (if you're thinking the larvae will go out of the bottom, the holes will be covered with rocks, and Coco coir).  Smaller holes on the side and top. This I wasn't sure of, but I know there needs to be air flow, so we will see.  
I cut some pipe we had in half connected half on each side with a PVC 90 in the corner, and a PVC T to connect to the drop container.  The container I was going to use is missing the lid, so I will have to find something else.  The top of the bin has a PVC T attached with wire (repurposed from my son's work) attached to keep rodents out.  
So far its cost me 2.00 for the PVC T's (thank goodness for my discount). Everything else we already had.
I used food grade silicone and wire to attach everything.
I'm trying to figure out the cheapest way to get rocks.  Believe it or not our ground has very little rock.  My son got som pea gravel, but I'm not sure that will work.  Anyway I should be able to get it together soon.

Finished today. I covered the bottom with weed cloth, a layer of pea gravel, weed cloth and a strip of coco coir.  I copied this off a video I watched. It's to make sure the drainage holes don't get clogged. Then food stamps. On top is a couple layers of burlap. This is to keep the scraps moist, not allowing a crust to form, and gives additional places for the female to lay eggs.  I put the lid on. I hope I have enough air holes. Now we will see if the black soldier fly come.

So far I have an epic fail. I fed a lot of house, and no black soldier fly larvae. I'm not giving up yet, though I am wondering if I have enough time and food scraps to make this work.  I'm pretty sure I didn't keep it moist enough, and I didn't put enough food in it.
We have puppy food that our pups don't like, so I'm going to soak some in water and put that in there.  It's what was recommended on one of the videos I watched.  I'm going to try to put something in the bin every day not only to add more food, but to check moisture level, and to mix to ensure aeration.  I'm giving it a month.  If I haven't figured it out by then, well maybe it's not for me.

I was wrong. Like I said I plan to give the bin another try. I was filling it up and noticed black things in the collection container. You guessed it black soldier fly larvae.  Lots of them, and one black soldier fly.  The larvae were very small. My fault, I didn't keep putting food in the bin.  The system works, I did attract black soldier flys. Now I have to get better at adding food to the bin.  
I'm not sure how long the bin will work. The videos I watched said they didn't get BSF in the winter. We have very mild winters, lucky to get a light frost a couple times a year. So I wonder if maybe it will work year round.  Time will tell

Excellent! Insulating the box should help keep them active through the winter as well. They are pretty active and burn a lot of energy digesting the food, making heat.

I have see suggestions of using stuff like dried dog food to get your first eggs laid, and then filling the bin itself with scraps. It takes time to attract enough BSF to lay eggs, and get a good grub population growing.

Sadly we don't get them here in the UK normally (too cold) but there is a business in london that have figured out indoor raising of BSF, including the breeding which is supposed to be pretty tricky.

Just a heads up.
These grubs are great climbers and a ring of Velcro Tape around the top will make them falling back before they move underneath the lid into freedom.

Make sure you use the "hook" side not the "loop" side..

My bin is working very well. There doesn't seem to be many house flys. The bin is loaded with black soldier fly larvae (I think. The maggots are pretty big). That being said I'm just not sure it's for me.  I like the idea of not having to buy black soldier fly larvae for my chickens, it's awesome they harvest themselves, which is why I thought I could do it.. But it's so gross!!!  I just don't know if I can handle putting the compost in the bin. Maggots everywhere.  Maybe I will be able to desensitize myself, and not be totally grossed out, but I honestly can't imagine it.  Time will tell.

Hah. Love the honesty. Squeemishness is a thing.

Something occurred to me, and I wanted to put a marker down for others who come to this thread.

Welding plastic to plastic with heat like a soldering iron is really effective and can be really strong. I see in your images that you have used a lot of silicon sealant to hold stuff. I would expect that to break down a bit over time.  Welded plastic should not. You can do clever things like put metal mesh over a hole and melt the mesh into the surface of the plastic, so that it is actually embedded, not glued to it. There are lots of youtube tutorials on the method.

Thanks Michael, I will have to look that up. I always enjoy learning something new.
It does look like I used a lot of silicone to glue everything together, but actually I used copper wire to connect almost everything. I used the silicone to fill in the gaps between the pipes and the wall of the bin. I'm not sure it's even necessary, and if it will break down in the future, I will hope it will continue to work.  Time will tell. Thanks again.

There are a couple things I wanted to share.
I made the cardboard egg things. If you are looking up making a BSF one thing you will see is to cut small pieces of cardboard put several together and hang it for the BSF to lay eggs in.  Mine are all moldy and gross.  I don't think they are being used at all???  I may cut them off and put new ones just to see if it happens again.  I'm calling this a fail.

One of the videos I watched, probably the most informative. Made by a  rep of a company that makes BSF bins said it put burlap on the top, to help keep it moist, discourage house flys, and give more places for the BSF to lay eggs. I would say this has worked very well . If I decide to continue to use my BSF bin I will definitely keep using the burlap.

At this moment I'm not using my BSF bin.  I'm trying to decide if it's worth it. Finally it's probably worth it. BSF are expensive to buy. My little bin can't produce enough to feed my chickens. I knew that going in. I didn't know if I could do it so I wanted to start small.  The main thing holding me back is time.  (The grossness is difficult, but I'm not going to let that stop me) If I had enough compost to keep the bin going strong there would be very little time needed. I don't those little buggers brake down food very fast.  To keep even the small bin I have full of fat little BSF it takes a good amount of food almost daily once it's going strong.  This means finding an outside source of food scraps. Picking up the food scraps probably several times a week.
I work full time, have a large garden, chickens, I guess you could say I'm a creative person so I'm always coming up with projects. Time is the issue holding me back. I'm just not sure.  ???🤔

Jen Fulkerson wrote:At this moment I'm not using my BSF bin.  I'm trying to decide if it's worth it. Finally it's probably worth it. BSF are expensive to buy. My little bin can't produce enough to feed my chickens. I knew that going in. I didn't know if I could do it so I wanted to start small.  The main thing holding me back is time.  (The grossness is difficult, but I'm not going to let that stop me) If I had enough compost to keep the bin going strong there would be very little time needed. I don't those little buggers brake down food very fast.  To keep even the small bin I have full of fat little BSF it takes a good amount of food almost daily once it's going strong.  This means finding an outside source of food scraps. Picking up the food scraps probably several times a week.
I work full time, have a large garden, chickens, I guess you could say I'm a creative person so I'm always coming up with projects. Time is the issue holding me back. I'm just not sure.  ???🤔

Professionally systems going through 30 lbs food in just 24 hrs. Hence they don't smell much.

Here another Video what 10000 of them do with a full size Pizza.. Not much time to create smell.
https://mashable.com/video/larvae-eating-pizza-video

My System in its best times, could go through a common bucket of kitchen scraps and food left overs every day but sometimes I had them starving because I couldn't keep pace with how they were chewing.

They work like a fountain, the ones that eat stop after a few minutes and the ones follow push them aside to reach the food.